Google is facing questions from European financial regulators after a cloud computing outage disrupted banking services for millions of customers, leaving some unable to access essential financial services for several hours.
The disruption occurred on Tuesday and affected several major financial institutions, including Revolut, Lloyds and HSBC. Regulators in the European Union and the United Kingdom are now seeking answers about the incident and its potential impact on the financial sector.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) confirmed that it had contacted Google Cloud to obtain more information about the outage, understand its consequences and assess the risks posed to financial institutions across the EU.
Google, owned by Alphabet, attributed the disruption to a power-related incident at a third-party facility in London that supports its European cloud network.
A Google spokesperson said the problem had been resolved and services restored.
“We have resolved a disruption to Google Cloud services at a third-party facility in our europe-west2 cloud region due to a power event. Services have been restored. We will update our public status dashboard with an analysis,” the spokesperson said.
Revolut, which serves approximately 13 million customers in the UK, reported disruptions affecting several services, including account logins, card payments and cash withdrawals.
The digital banking company said it was reviewing what happened to reduce the likelihood and impact of similar incidents involving external technology providers.
Revolut also assured customers that their funds and personal data remained safe throughout the disruption.
HSBC and Lloyds were also among the affected banks, although neither provided a comment on the incident.
Regulators Examine Risks to Europe’s Banking Sector
The outage has become an early test of new regulatory measures introduced in Europe to strengthen the reliability of technology companies that provide critical services to financial institutions.
Last year, the European Union designated 19 technology companies as critical third-party providers to the financial sector. The move brought these companies under direct joint oversight by three financial regulators, including the European Banking Authority.
The UK has introduced a similar framework covering four cloud service providers, recognising that a failure at a major technology company could disrupt several financial institutions simultaneously.
Google Cloud falls under both the EU and UK regulatory frameworks.
The EBA clarified that regulatory oversight does not remove the responsibilities of either technology providers or the financial institutions that depend on them.
It said the designation of a company as a critical third-party provider establishes an EU-level oversight system but does not transfer responsibility for managing incidents away from the provider or exempt banks from their own regulatory obligations.
UK Authorities Seek Answers Over the Disruption
In Britain, Parliament’s Treasury Committee has written to the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), requesting details about how the regulators responded to Tuesday’s outage.
The committee also wants information about the scale of the disruption and whether customers or financial institutions suffered any financial losses.
The FCA confirmed that it was engaging with Google over the incident. Under Britain’s critical third-party rules, designated providers such as Google Cloud must report serious service disruptions to the FCA and the Bank of England.
The Bank of England declined to comment.
The incident has renewed concerns about the banking industry’s dependence on a small number of major technology providers. Although banks increasingly rely on cloud computing to deliver digital services, a disruption affecting one supplier can have consequences for multiple financial institutions at once.
Under both EU and UK regulations, banks remain ultimately responsible for the services they provide to customers, even when those services depend on external technology companies.
